Wolfenstein Review

Gameplay & Interface

At its core, Wolfenstein is a traditional run and gun FPS. You also have the ability to aim down the sights for more accuracy, and to sprint. You can crouch too. Stealth is an option but it’s more fun to charge in with guns blazing.

The HUD is generally quite traditional and shows ammunition counts for your current weapon, grenade count, and also your medallion’s energy and veil powers. There’s also a compass at the top of the screen that shows your current direction and how to get to your current mission. There’s no health bar, but BJ’s view turns red when he’s taken significant damage. If you’ve played Call of Duty 2 then it’s the same deal.

This is the officer’s house, one of the missions in the game. The disc to the left of your HUD is your medallion and it shows your current veil powers and your veil energy (the blue bar). The right of your HUD shows your grenade count along with ammo counts for your equipped weapon. The compass at the top points to your current objective.

You also have a journal that has maps of the town’s areas, your current and completed missions, and their statistics. It also has information about weapon and medallion upgrades, along with overall game statistics such as how many items you’ve found, and how many enemies you’ve killed.

There’s no quick-load or quick-save; the game instead saves several checkpoints and also saves at the start of every mission. You can also replay any past mission through your journal.

Level Design

Isenstadt itself is a sand-box and serves as a hub to the missions, so you can explore it at your leisure. If you’ve played Thief 3 then it’s basically the same deal. As you complete missions, other parts of the city are unlocked along with more missions.

This is one of the areas in downtown Isenstadt.

The two groups that will give you missions are the local resistance, and the Golden Sun (Russian scholars devoted to studying the occult and paranormal). There are also a handful of side missions, and you can trigger these by speaking to characters marked in green on your map. The black market is the game’s third group; they don’t give you any missions, but they do sell you upgrades for your weapons and medallion.

All of the game’s major groups have characters that can be talked to at a basic level, and there are also various friendly NPCs scattered around town that you can talk to as well. All three groups also have safe houses around the city which are weapons free zones, and enemies can’t enter them.

It’s possible to have multiple missions at once and you can complete them in any order you please, without time limits. The missions themselves follow more traditional linear level design, and some of the larger ones can span multiple maps. Once you go on a mission you can’t return to town until you’ve finished it, so be sure to purchase any upgrades you desire before embarking. Some missions also reward you with a cash reward for completing them.

The missions offer a varied mix of environments and include factories, research labs, an officer’s house, and of course the obligatory castle. Level design is generally above average but not excellent, and some levels could have been polished better, like the hospital, dig site, and the castle. There’s also a distinct lack of supernatural levels akin to the crypt levels from the previous game.

Gameplay tip: the airfield mission is the game’s point of no return so before you leave for it, make sure you’ve completed all of your business in town. You will however have one last opportunity to purchase from the black market during the mission.